Better Safe than Sorry
by justinxx
Summary: Harley goes a little overboard when getting things for the Gotham City Sirens' girl's night in.


Harleen Quinzel pouted her lower lip in frustration as she scanned the board games on the rickety shelf. The problem wasn't that there were lots to choose from (which she was thankful for), but there wasn't much to pick from at all. The steel shelf, rusting and leaning a little too forward for Harley's liking, shelved about eight dinged-up boxes of games that weren't exactly tickling her fancy.

She knew that it wasn't the owner's fault. The people who owned the place, a nice little family that Harley had grown to like, suffered from bad luck. One day, Riddler's goons would snatch up all the crossword puzzles, the next, Oswald's birds raided the ice cream from the freezers. Harley always made it a habit to buy a little more than she needed each time she came.

Tapping her right foot, the floppy ears of her pink bunny slippers patting the linoleum floor, she considered her options.

 _I already have most of the ones here_ , she thought. _Could always use an extra copy of Scrabble?_

Harley swung her grocery basket of potato chips and soda from side to side, exhaling loudly. The bottles shook and fizzed, the chip bags crinkling loudly.

"This is so hard!" she cried, stomping her slippered feet and shaking her pony-tailed head.

A slender boy in a black rain jacket peeks down the end of the aisle. Round glasses and a blue beanie envelop most of his face, his dark skin peppered with droplets of rain from outside. He smiles at the sight of the familiar customer.

"Hi, Ms. Quinzel" he announces with a polite wave.

Harley shifts her gaze to the boy and grins widely.

"Hiya, Mikey! You know, you can just call me Harley" she greets. "All bundled up for the weather?"

"You bet. It's raining cats and dogs out there" he smiles, itching his nose.

"Oh boy, I wish! I'd catch them all if I could. Wouldn't you?"

"I guess so."

Harley and Mikey share a moment of laughter.

"How's the fourth grade been treatin' you?" she asks, turning her body toward Mikey and setting her basket down.

"Okay. Just having a little trouble with math" he answers, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Oh, tell me about it. That was my worst subject. I passed with flying colors, though! My teacher would write my D's down in colored marker and I'd fold 'em into paper airplanes and throw 'em at her!" she jokes.

Mikey giggles at the image in his head. Harley smiled warmly, always loving how easy he was to get a laugh out of.

"You're weird, you know that, Ms. Quinzel?"

"You don't have to tell me twice. And please, call me Harley. All my friends do."

"Okay, Harley" he laughs.

"Mind helping me for a sec?" she asks with a stretch.

Mikey nods.

Turning to the sad shelf of board games, she asks, "I'm havin' trouble pickin' out a game. Know which one I should get?"

Mikey stands on his tiptoes, eyeing the crooked stack of games. It doesn't take him too long to take them all in.

"Hm..." he begins. "Which ones do you already have?"

Harley considers for a second. "None of 'em."

"I like _Apples to Apples_. That one's real funny." He reaches for the box, the wheels of the shelf screeching, and hands it to her. "Hope that's alright with you."

Harley hugs the box and buries it in her gray sweatshirt. "I love it!"

Mikey smiles. "Anyways, I just wanted to tell you that we got a 2 for 1 deal on candy up front. Feel free to pick whatever. There ain't much of a variety though, so sorry about that."

Harley, stuffing the game between the bags of chips and soda, comes up with an idea.

 _Selina and Ivy won't be too happy about this_ , she thinks. _Too bad!_

"I'll take it all!" she declares with a grin.

A confused look grows on Mikey's face. "Huh?"

"I'll take all the candy you have" she reaffirms, reaching down to pick up her grocery basket. "I've got a killer sweet tooth."

"Are you sure? That's a lot to carry out. And it'll cost a lot" he asks, puzzled.

"Don't worry about that. I've got it covered."

"I-I'll have my dad start bagging it!" he exclaims, rushing to the front counter. Harley couldn't help but laugh.

"What a sweet kid" she says to herself. Harley eyes the remaining games and laughs an evil laugh that she had perfected so long ago.

…

Harley releases the heavy basket on the counter top with a grunt, the slam rattling the loose change in the cash register. Mikey's father looks to her and to the basket in disbelief. The red basket is piled with the remaining board games from the shelf, the bottles of soda and bags of chips wobbling on top.

Harley smiles to him. His wide eyes trail to the three other baskets filled to the brim with bags of four different kinds of candy bars.

"That's, uh… that's a lot" he utters, adjusting his cap and ruffling his curly gray hair.

"What can I say? A girl's gotta eat!"

Mikey's father remains stunned. "Sure you don't wanna buy the place while you're at it?"

"Nah, maybe next time!" she jokes, swiping a credit card that she may or may not have stolen earlier that day.

"Let me know when you're ready and I'll bring the papers" he chuckles, wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead.

Harley grins and signs her name on the card reader, drawing a heart above the I in her last name. A two-foot-long receipt is spit out, curling and crawling across the cluttered counter. She proudly rolls the receipt up and stuffs it into her sweatshirt pocket.

"Need help carrying these out?" he asks as he begins to step from behind the counter.

Harley stops him. "No thanks. I've already called in backup."

Moments later, disheveled and out of breath, Ivy and Selina charge into the small grocery store. Ivy, wrapped in a green shawl with her fiery wave of hair flapping behind her, commands the roots outside the store to be on alert. Selina, instinctively scanning her surroundings, curls her fingers to claw someone. Their gazes fall to their grinning friend and to the baskets of food and games.

"Harley, you didn't" Ivy sighs, rolling her emerald eyes.

"Harley, I did!" she replies.

Selina's head falls into her hands, her teal rain jacket rustling. "You said it was an emergency!"

"It _was_ an emergency! You can't expect me to carry these all by myself, can you?" She forces a smile at her friend's disappointed looks. "I thought we could use some extra food and games for our girl's night in."

" _Some_?" Ivy shrieks, motioning toward the baskets of unnecessary items. "We wanted something small, not the whole store!"

"So I went a little overboard. Better safe than sorry, right?"

"Looks more than a little overboard to me" Selina utters from one side of her mouth.

"Come on, guys! I got two bottles of your favorite pop that you can have all to yourself, Selina! And you're always talkin' 'bout how much you love Hershey's, aren't ya, Red?" Harley pleads, running her fingers through the overflowing bag of candy bars. "I've got you enough to last the whole year!"

Ivy and Selina look to each other with defeated expressions. Selina shrugs, indifferent. Ivy glimpses the curling receipt slithering down Harley's striped pajamas.

"Well, it's already paid for" Ivy sighs, crossing her arms. Harley claps and jumps in place.

Selina couldn't hold back a smile. "Let's get these in the car before she has a heart attack."

The Gotham City Sirens begin hauling the bags of candy, chips, soda, and games in the little car Selina hot wired on the way over. As Harley rests the final bag on Selina's lap, she goes back in to return the baskets.

Mikey, still holding the door open, nods happily to Harley. Harley winks at him.

Stacking the baskets with the others, she catches the gum rack in her peripheral vision. Without thinking twice, she grabs a handful of bubblegum and reaches for a $50 in her pajama pocket. Handing it to Mikey, she exclaims, "Let me know how your math is going next time I'm in!"

Mikey clutches the bill, amazed at both the amount and Harley's genuine interest in his schooling.

"Sure thing!"

The Clown Princess of Crime waves farewell to Mikey and his dad and skips merrily to the idling car. She hops in the back seat, patting the grocery bags around her, sighing in pure bliss.

Selina, in the passenger seat, turns to Harley. "I'm going to claw your eyes out when we get home."

"Do it _after_ a game of _Scrabble_ , won't ya?" she offers, tapping her painted fingers on the box of the game.

"We already _ha_ _ve_ it at home, Harley!" Ivy cries. She grimaces to Harley in mock anger.

Harley begins to laugh, and Selina and Ivy do too.


End file.
